


in this minute

by cubedmango



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, i'm Big Mad at the movie and tried to fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 00:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18680836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cubedmango/pseuds/cubedmango
Summary: He takes a step forward, and thinks,it’s done. This is where it finishes for them, and now Bucky has to move ahead.He takes a second step forward, and wonders if he should leave, too—go back to Wakanda, and his farm, and his peace. He could stay in hiding, though he doesn’t need to, not anymore. He could turn down Fury’s official invitation to join the Avengers. He could do that, he could do all of that.He’s taking a third step forward when—“Bucky?”He stops in his tracks.





	in this minute

**Author's Note:**

> we all know it. we all hate it. i loved the movie right until the last five minutes, and i'm never gonna forgive the russos for what they did to my children.
> 
> here's my attempt at a fix-it. enjoy.

 

He’s exhausted, and everything hurts, but he stands again, keeps his rifle up, and watches with awe as the God of Thunder drives his axe into Thanos’ chest.

 

Bucky feels an inkling of hope grow in his own, and then—

 

The titan snaps his fingers, Thor yells, raw and bloody, and he feels irrevocably _wrong_.

 

He waits with bated breath for something to happen, _anything_ to happen. In the blink of an eye, Thanos is gone, and in his place is silence, the only sounds being the rustling of leaves and the rush of Wakandan wind.

 

He’s about to walk forward when he freezes. His arm begins to crumble into nothing.

 

He prays— _don’t let this be it, God, don’t let this be it_ —and does the only thing he can in that moment.

 

“Steve?”

 

Steve turns back, and he’s gone.

 

 

 

He blinks his eyes open, and he’s still there, but Steve isn’t. He gets up on his feet and reaches for his gun, on guard for _something_ —he doesn’t know what—but his movements are sloppy, and his heart won’t stop hammering.

 

Bucky looks around, and realizes that Steve isn’t the only one missing.

 

His eyes catch Sam’s from a few feet away, and he starts, “Where is—”

 

He’s interrupted by a glowing circle of light emerging from thin air, with what looks like utter destruction beyond it. A man steps through—his wrists glowing—tells them to stand up, to gear up. Bucky is barely listening, but he walks anyway, through the portal and onto new soil. Sam flies past him, and so does Wanda. In line with him stay T’Challa and Groot, and behind them follow the king’s army.

 

He stops and stares across the land, at the troops of aliens and their leader, and looks to his side.

 

There stands a troop of their own: thousands of soldiers, Asgardians, magicians, from the most of ordinary to the most of unusual. Bucky recognizes some of them—the talking raccoon, the spider-kid—and others, not so much, but it doesn’t matter.

 

At the forefront are _their_ leaders: Thor, Stark—

 

Steve.

 

Bucky lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

 

He feels the adrenaline rush through his veins, lets it wash away his fatigue, and prepares himself for the war.

 

One last time.

 

* * *

 

 

The funeral is a private event, with only a handful of people present. Bucky hangs his head as he stands at the very back, knowing he doesn’t belong. He’s been told time and time again that he wasn’t responsible for what happened to Howard and Maria, HYDRA was, but he still _did_ it, and no amount of reassurances could change his mind.

 

Sam places a gentle hand on his shoulder as they watch the wreath float away.

 

Bucky sees Steve open his compass and look at the picture of Peggy. He pretends not to notice.

 

 

 

Bruce approaches them later in the day, asking around for volunteers willing to go back and return the stones. Clint had abstained, not wanting to return to Vormir, and Thor had already left for New Asgard. Before either of them could agree, Steve marched in and stepped in front of the giant.

 

Bucky recognizes the familiar spark of determination in his eyes as he tells Bruce, “I’ll do it.”

 

He follows wordlessly as they’re lead to a smaller version of the time machine. Bruce explains to them the process, and the consequences of any potential mistakes, while Bucky listens from a distance. Sam offers to tag along, but Steve shuts him down immediately.

 

Then he’s face-to-face with Steve.

 

Bucky’s no idiot. He knows what’s about to happen—he’s known Steve his whole life, afterall. While anyone else might not be able to read him, Bucky definitely can. He's always been able to guess what Steve's about to do, even if Steve hasn't said a word about it. This time, it's no different.

 

Steve has no intentions of coming back.

 

The realization stings worse a bullet straight to the chest, worse than years of torture, worse than the subfreezing cold. Bucky _wants_ to support him, he _knows_ that Steve deserves this the most out of everyone—a life of peace after endless fighting—but all he can feel is his heart sink with the realization that he’s being left behind.

 

It’s as if the last ten decades hadn’t been nearly cruel enough.

 

Steve smiles at him, and Bucky does his best to return it—to put on a mask that doesn’t betray his emotions. The last thing he wants is to _guilt_ him into staying. It works, judging by how Steve stays as unsuspecting as ever, and Bucky hopes it stays that way.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid till I get back.” Steve says, an echo of a lifetime ago. It’s a lie, Bucky knows, that he’s ever returning, but not even that can stop a genuine smile from growing on his face.

 

He looks at the machine, and back at Steve. _Play the part_ , he tells himself. “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

 

Steve pulls him in for a hug, then. There’s no exchange of _punk_ and _jerk_ , no _be careful_ , no walking away, no salutes. There’s no war waiting for them, threatening to change their lives. It’s just them and their futures, uncertain as ever, and the promise of a dance waiting to be fulfilled.

 

Bucky’s heart lies broken on the ground below them, exactly in the middle, but Steve doesn’t see.

 

He never sees.

 

“I’m gonna miss you, buddy.” Bucky says, not sure whether or not he wants Steve to realize he’s onto his plan.

 

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.” Steve responds, but it doesn’t do anything to comfort him. He tries for a smile again, but it doesn’t exactly work.

 

Steve walks away, then, onto the platform, with the briefcase and Mjölnir in hand. Bruce says something about five seconds, but Bucky tunes him out, keeping his gaze fixed on the blond, burying the words he wants to say, the secrets he wants to spill, the tears he wants to shed.

 

Steve looks back at him for a fraction of a second, and it almost breaks his resolve to stay quiet.

 

Bruce finishes his countdown, and he’s gone.

 

It’s the end of the line.

 

After the machine stays woefully empty after five, six, ten seconds, Bucky turns away, smiling with a relief he doesn’t really feel. Behind him, the other two panic, amidst frantically pressing buttons and yelling, and he has to do everything in his being to stop himself from telling them that he’s not coming back. It’s better if they realize it themselves.

 

He takes a step forward, and thinks, _it’s done._ This is where it finishes for them, and now Bucky has to move ahead.

 

He takes a second step forward, and wonders if he should leave, too—go back to Wakanda, and his farm, and his peace. He could stay in hiding, though he doesn’t need to, not anymore. Surely, T’Challa would be kind enough to let him stay, Shuri would continue helping him with his broken brain and his arm, and the children would keep harmlessly pestering him. He could turn down Fury’s official invitation to join the Avengers, even as a covert member, because he’s so, _so_ tired of fighting. He could do that, he could do all of that.

 

He’s taking a third step forward when—

 

“Bucky?”

 

He stops in his tracks.

 

“Steve, what the hell?” he hears Sam say. Bruce mutters a soft _oh, God, I thought_ — before quickly turning off the equipment. The time machine hums for a moment, and then shuts down. “What was that?”

 

“What was what?” Steve asks—his voice no different than it was before he left—as if unaware that he’d been gone a few seconds too long. He hears footsteps behind him, but Bucky doesn’t turn around, he _can’t_ . His limbs go rigid, his nails dig deeper into his skin, and his breath hitches, and the only thing on his mind is _why, why, why_ —

 

“Those extra seconds?” Bruce explains, “What happened?”

 

“Oh, am I late?” he replies, “Sorry about that.”

 

“Eleven seconds late, but, yeah.” Sam sighs, “Was there a problem with the stones?”

 

“No, they’re all back where they were.”

 

“Okay, well, good thing _you’re_ back safely.” he chuckles, “Almost had us worried there.”

 

There’s a beat of silence. Bucky almost turns around.

 

“Shit’s done, finally. Green man, let’s go get some food.” Sam says, “You coming?” There’s no verbal response, but Bucky assumes Steve declined. “Barnes, you?”

 

“No.” he mutters.

 

Before he knows it, Sam is gone, and Bruce is carting away the machinery, just behind him. Bucky stays grounded where he is, trying to convince himself that maybe he's making this all up, maybe Steve's about to go back, just later, maybe—

 

“Wanna sit down?” Steve says, suddenly standing on Bucky's right. He looks up slowly, unblinking, to find Steve smiling softly at him—as he always does—completely unbothered, unaware of Bucky's current internal monologue.

 

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

 

Steve walks towards a bench on the coast, under a tree. Bucky trails behind, racking his brain for something to say, something to ask, but sitting besides him, he's not sure if he wants to speak at all.

 

It's when is Steve is staring into the expanse of water beyond them that Bucky finally gets a good look at him. He’s still in his Captain America suit, and from a distance he’d look like he hasn’t aged a day, but there's stubble on his chin—a week or two old, probably—and bags under his eyes that weren't there before. He wants to know what happened, why he came back, but he doesn't want to break the silence, either.

 

“How do you feel?” he manages to choke out, eventually.

 

Steve sighs. “Tired as hell, honestly. Wouldn't mind a week-long nap, or another seventy-year-long one, either.”

 

Bucky wants to say _don't joke about that_ , but he just blinks a few times, instead, still trying to process things.

 

Steve closes his eyes, and Bucky wonders if he could just leave it here—if he could act like he never knew what Steve was going to do. It wouldn't be difficult, seeing as he, and everyone else, had no clue, anyway. He'd be left with his questions in the dead of night, every potential reason plaguing him, but he could deal with that. He'd already dealt with that, in all the years that passed since that fated day at the Potomac.

 

Steve had gone after him, though, for two years. Maybe Bucky deserves to go after him, too, just this once.

 

He takes a deep breath, rests his head on the back of the bench, and asks, “Why are you here, Steve?”

 

Whatever Steve's reaction to that is, he doesn't see. “What do you mean, _why are you here_? I returned the stones, and now I'm back. Wasn't that the plan?”

 

“That was _our_ plan,” he says, “not yours.”

 

There's no response, and Bucky realizes he's hit the nail on the head. Not that he'd doubted his instincts, but it burns just a little to see it confirmed.

 

“I met Peggy, again, when I was…” Steve starts, after a few seconds, and Bucky keeps staring at the sky. “I had a bit of explaining to do, but I got that dance, in the end.”

 

The words _that's great, pal_ stay on the tip of Bucky's tongue, unspoken. He's not sure he'd be able to stop them from sounding bitter, if he did say them out loud.

 

He looks at Bucky, then. “She told me about her husband, and her kids.”

 

Bucky says nothing.

 

“She moved on, Buck.” he explains, like it's that simple, like he should just _get it_. “I did too, even if I didn't realize it at first.”

 

 _Steve_ and _moving on_ don't belong together in a sentence, he thinks, but he'll entertain the idea of that, just for a few seconds—

 

Except, when he finally, _finally_ looks at Steve, there's no creases on his forehead, his jaw is relaxed, and he's looking straight at Bucky.

 

He isn't lying.

 

“You moved on.” he repeats uselessly, as if it's all supposed to make sense now.

 

“Yeah, I did.” Steve replies, and there's a ghost of a smile on his face. “Never thought I would, to be honest, especially when they first took me out of the ice. Turns out, even a stubborn son of a bitch like me can change, with just some time.”

 

Bucky wants to ask if something had happened in those five years he was gone, or even in those two years he spent in Wakanda—if he'd met someone who had changed his mind. The words don't come out.

 

“I went back to our old neighborhood, too.” Steve says, out of nowhere, and Bucky goes still. “The one before we moved out.”

 

He remembers it, somewhat. There's hazy memories of races to-and-back from school, back-alley squabbles, and endless treats shared in the dizzying summer heat. He has some recollection of his parents, his sisters, his friends, but they're not in the more prominent of his memories. It's just Steve.

 

“Remember the summer I had pneumonia?”

 

Bucky smiles faintly at that. “The first one, or the second?”

 

“The second.” Steve grins. “It got so bad, I couldn't even get out of bed.”

 

“And I did all your homework for you, with a perfectly forged handwriting.” Bucky adds, “Ma told me to stop going over to your place, but I went anyway.”

 

Steve beams brightly. “After I recovered, you treated me to hotdogs using the money you were saving up for that shirt.”

 

It was a hideous thing, that shirt, and in retrospect he can't understand why he'd ever wanted it. “It was an ugly shirt.”

 

“Eh, it was an okay shirt.” Steve says, “I asked you, then, if you'd buy that shirt instead of the food, if you could, since you were trying to impress that new girl. What was her name— Clara? Claire?”

 

Bucky doesn't remember the girl, and he knows he'd forgotten about her in a week back then, too.

 

“Then— then you'd said, _definitely not, you deserve this hotdog_ way _more._ ” Steve continues, in a half-assed rendition of Bucky's adolescent voice. He briefly wonders if there's some point to this that he's missing, somehow. “ _No regrets_.”

 

“It was a _seriously_ ugly shirt.”

 

“And those hotdogs were _seriously_ bad, but, Bucky, what I'm trying to say is—” Steve stops, looking at his feet for a moment, before looking back up. “I'm lucky to be alive right now. I found friends in this century, I found _family_. Sure, I could've traded it all for a second chance with Peggy, but that's not what anyone here deserves.”

 

“They'd be fine without you, Steve.”

 

“Would they?” he asks, and suddenly Bucky's not so sure anymore. They'd already lost two heroes—could they handle a third? “Would _you_?”

 

 _No, I wouldn't_ , he wants to say, because it's the truth. He wouldn't know what to do with himself, if Steve actually left for good. He can't speak the truth, though, not now, not ever. “I can get by on my own.”

 

“You don't have to, Buck.” Steve says, and suddenly he's back in front of Sarah's apartment, shoving away a brick on the ground and holding out a silver key, making the promise of an eternity, waiting to be fulfilled. “I swore, to the end of the line, and I meant it.”

 

Bucky's eyes burn. “You're not happy here.”

 

“Who said that?” he replies, “I'm the happiest I've been in _years_ , right here, on this bench. I have the team, I have Sam, I have you.”

 

“You stayed for—” his voice cracks, his vision goes blurry, and he doesn't know what he wants to say, other than that Steve is an absolute _idiot_ for coming back, “for _this_? This mess?”

 

“No,” Steve says, completely genuine. “I stayed for my best friend, for the love of my life.”

 

Bucky freezes.

 

“I'm—” he tries, as his entire body seizes up. “What?”

 

“Come on, Bucky.” Steve grins now. “You think I’d disobey direct military orders and break several international laws for _everybody_?”

 

“But, you—” Bucky tries again, his brain more lost than ever, and his heart an utter mess. “What about—”

 

“I loved Peggy, I did, but she wasn't the love of my life.” Steve explains, “We kissed once, I promised her a dance, then she thought I died and moved on, and I came back and moved on. I went back, gave her the dance, and returned. It's pretty simple.”

 

Bucky blinks, more confused that he's ever been in his entire life—and there was period in time he didn't even _know_ who Steve was, so that's something.

 

Steve laughs. “I kissed her great-niece, for fuck's sake!”

 

Bucky can't respond.

 

“You know who's still here, still _alive_ , knows _exactly_ what I've been through, and who I've loved since I was _sixteen_?”

 

Bucky can't think, he can't—

 

“I didn't even know it myself, until Peggy slapped some sense into me, _literally_.” Steve says, “She told me to get my head out my ass and look at what's right in front of me.”

 

“Her.” he replies, trying to even out his voice and failing miserably. “It was her.”

 

“No, it wasn't, Bucky.” Steve tells him, “It was a photo of _us_ , at Coney Island. She gave it to me, said she found it at our place. July of thirty-six, we'd gotten ditched by our dates, and we spent all our savings on the rides and a single picture of us.”

 

There were no dates, Bucky remembers, and he'd painstakingly planned the day for a whole _week_ , pretending to invite some girls and then lying about them declining at the last minute, so he could spend some time with Steve, just the two of them. The effort was worth it in the end, all for Steve's bright smile.

 

“It was you.” Steve says, effortless. “It’s _always_ you.”

 

Bucky had accepted it long before that day, that Steve would never feel the same way about him as he does for Steve, but he was fine with it. He was fine with it, and had been to this day, but now…

 

“Say something,” Steve says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Anything.”

 

Bucky takes a shaky breath, and looks Steve in the eye.

 

“If you're lying about this, I'll kick your ass, I fucking swear.”

 

Steve laughs, an angelic thing. “I lied to myself for over eighty years, Buck. I don’t think I can, anymore.”

 

That breaks Bucky—his emotions coming apart at the seams, and his heart feeling like it will burst. He can’t believe this, he can’t believe _any_ of this, and all he can do is hide his face in his hands, and cry a century’s worth of tears.

 

Steve moves his hands, then, and holds Bucky’s face tenderly. He’s met with bright blue eyes, as sincere as they’ve always been, and the last of his composure falls to pieces.

 

“Don’t go,” Bucky pleads, “Don’t go again.”

 

“I won’t.” Steve declares, resting their foreheads together. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

They breathe, slowly, deeply, together. In this moment, all they have is each other.

 

They lean in.

 

 

 

The two of them are still there, minutes later, quietly exchanging words and admiring the sunset. Steve prattles on about some vacation he wants to take with everyone, now that they’re not wanted by governments all over the world. He says he wants to retire— _quasi-retire_ , if that’s even a word—when they’re back, give up the mantle of Captain America, and work from behind the curtains, instead.

 

“No successor?” Bucky asks, “No _Captain America, the Second_?”

 

Steve gives him a look.

 

“ _God_ , no.” Bucky shudders. He’s not fighting, not anymore.

 

“Yeah, I figured.” Steve hums contemplatively. “Sam would be a good fit, don’t you think?”

 

There’s no quips, no jokes, just genuine acceptance. Bucky smiles. “He’d be great.”

 

Bucky glances up from where his head is resting on Steve’s shoulder, a few seconds later. There’s a peaceful smile on his face—the rare kind—and his eyes are closed, relaxing in the dusky sunlight. His golden hair calmly sways his forehead, pushed back by a delicate breeze.

 

In this minute, everything is perfect.

 

“Wanna head back?” Bucky murmurs, making no effort to move.

 

“Nah, let’s stay a bit longer.” Steve answers, gripping Bucky’s hand just a little tighter. “We’ve got all the time in the world, anyway.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please cry/bitch about the movie with me. (i will die for kudos and comments of validation, by the way.)
> 
> i've written another stucky fic (modern/neighbors/texting au, with no angst whatsoever)! read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/17255189).
> 
> my friend wrote a fix-it as well! find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898618).


End file.
